300 Prof. Hitchcock on Ichnoliihology, or Fossil Footmarks. 



there have I been obhged to eke it out as well as I could. A 

 large part of several years has been devoted to this work. If in 

 any thing I can lay claim to originality and original discovery, 

 it is here. Dr. Deane, Dr. Barratt, Col. John Wilson, Col. David 

 Bryant, N. P. Ames, Esq. and Prof. Henry Hanmer, have, 

 indeed, very kindly sent me interesting specimens, several of 

 them new ; and Dr. Barratt gave the name to one species ; but 

 the rest have all been described by me, and most of them dis- 

 covered by me, in no less than sixteen quarries scattered through 

 the valley of the Connecticut. 



Yet the labor of these investigations has not been the most 

 trying part of the worlf. I had advanced opinions that seemed 

 to most geologists improbable and extravagant; and the same 

 incredulity could not but be extended to all my scientific efforts. 

 He only who has been obliged to sustain an unpopular cause for 

 years, and has felt the misgivings and heart-sickness of such a 

 state, can appreciate my sufferings from this cause, during the 

 long conflict. It cannot, therefore, be thought strange, that T 

 should manifest a lively sensibility to any statements that seem 

 to me to detract from my just claims on this subject.* 



It seems to me from this full view of the case, that I may re- 

 gard the following positions as established. 



1. If to find the footmarks, and to form and express the opin- 

 ion that they were made by birds, constitute their original dis- 

 covery, then Mr. Moody and Dr. Dwight of South Hadley can 

 fairly lay claim to it earlier than any others. 



2. If to prove by long and laborious investigations, what is 

 the true nature of these impressions, may properly be regarded 

 as their discovery, in the sense in which that term is understood 

 by scientific men, then I may lay claim to it — since the only 

 help which I have received in these researches has been in the 

 communication of specimens. In a popular sense, indeed, he 

 who first finds a specimen in natural history, may be called the 

 original discoverer; and in this sense I have always spoken of 

 Dr. Deane, Mr. Moody, and Mr. Wilson, as original discoverers. 



* Prof. Silliman from the very first decidedly sustained my views, and they were 

 fully adopted afterwards by Prof. Buckland in his Bridgewater Treatise. Had I 

 not received the support of these gentlemen, it seems to me that I must have giv- 

 en up the contest in despair. 



